


Taking Gray's Place

by dragonshost



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Gen, Post-Tartaros Arc (Fairy Tail)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 14:30:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20725745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonshost/pseuds/dragonshost
Summary: Juvia has words with Jellal about his Avatar plans.





	Taking Gray's Place

“What kind of a plan is that?!” Juvia slammed her hand down on the rock where the makeshift map lay, Jellal and the onlooking members of his guild all flinching at the way the object crinkled at the action. Maps were difficult to get their hands on as criminals. Ignorant of the abuse she was heaping upon the innocent object, Juvia continued to rant and rave at the tattooed man. “This is the worst plan that Juvia has ever heard of!”

Jellal frowned, starting to get irritated at the woman obliviously damaging one of his few possessions. “How so, exactly? Spy work is a tried and true tactic, and Gray has not only the qualifications to insert himself into Avatar’s ranks, he has the disposition to do it. Might I remind you that he also agreed to do so?”

“Because Erza asked him to!” Juvia practically spat the other woman’s name. Much as she loved Erza, she despised what had occurred, what Erza had perpetrated against someone she cared about deeply. “Both you and Erza know that Gray could never refuse a dear friend when they ask for his help! Even if it hurts him! Even if it gets him killed!”

“Who, then?” Jellal’s cold words froze Juvia in her tracks. “Who, then, would you suggest we have do this? Me? Meredy? We have a reputation for taking down dark guilds. They’d never buy that we suddenly had another change of heart. How about the rest of my guild? It’s not well known that the former Oracion Seis are working with me, but it is known.”

Red seeped into Juvia’s cheeks, hot anger mixed with shame.

Not allowing her the chance at a rebuttal, Jellal continued, unabated. “Chances are that someone in the guild knows, which would put them in mortal danger, too. Which leaves Erza, or you. Out of the pair of you, who would be more suited, do you think? The former member of Phantom Lord, a guild renowned for its cruelty and its disbandment for trying to level an entire city full of innocent people, or the Titania, knighthood and its ideals personified? Who, Juvia? Who would take Gray’s place?”

Juvia shook, her anger beating out the hurt Jellal’s words caused, but only by a thin margin. “So you’re saying it was Juvia, or Gray, then?” She licked her lips, before she carefully hissed out, “Then Juvia would have been happy to do it, just so Gray wouldn’t have to. Why didn’t you ask Juvia, then?”

That response seemed to surprise Jellal, the man recoiling slightly from her. “You… would have done it? Gone straight into the middle of danger, all for someone that’s repeatedly spurned your affections? And yes, I know all about that.”

Now he was just deliberately trying to hurt her. For all that he claimed to have changed, the man clearly hadn’t. Not where it counted. “Doesn’t matter,” Juvia told him, her voice beginning to level out. “Juvia would have done it anyway. It’s just who Juvia is.”

Unsatisfied by her answer, but unable to counter it, Jellal glowered at her in silence for a few moments. Then, finally, he said, “Regardless, it doesn’t matter now. Gray is the one in Avatar, not you, and you had better get used to that fact if you want to continue to travel with us. I can’t have you blowing his cover.”

The threat in his words wasn’t lost on Juvia. “Fine,” she stated. “But Juvia won’t forget or forgive this. Just remember that, Jellal.”

As she stood up and turned to stomp away from the heinous man, she thought she heard him whisper, “This is why I was against bringing you into this at all. We should have left you in that village.”

Juvia pretended not to hear him, as she stalked away from the man.

A storm descended upon their encampment that night, with raging winds and lightning in the sky, a torrential downpour that miraculously only soaked through a single tent.

Juvia pretended not to notice how Jellal shivered and sneezed after it finally abated.


End file.
